Course ideas for Wizarding Academy

[Alan Shutko]

Unless stated otherwise in rules or lore, it is assumed things in D&D work like in real world. In RW you are rarely born a genius or master athlete.

True, they say you need around 10,000 hours of practice on different things to become an expert at something. So, what sorts of things might you practice?

(Witness my daring segue.)

I do like the idea of phys ed as an elective, since wizards that want to adventure might want that. But of course, there will be the sage-type who will sit in the books for years and never go adventuring. In game terms, they may not advance as fast as the person pillaging hoards and slaying foes, but they're definitely an archetype.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I would think that the art of Spellcraft would involve some severely intensive training on the physical aspects of spellcasting. (1) Like a professional guitar player, I would assume that wizards would possess (naturally and from practice) extreme finger and wrist dexterity as performing many spells likely requires the wizard to knit their fingers/contort their hands into complex postures and then transition from complex posture to complex posture with perfect precision. (2) Then there is probably vocals training to properly pronounce complex, arcane syllables and produce odd inflections while transitioning to other complex sounds/words that again require perfect precision. (3) Finally, you have implement training that would again have a martial aspect.

That leaves one question then... is a graduate an expert? (What level is a graduate? And then what level is a journeyman?)

In the Babylon 5 setting, an "professional" telepath is someone who has reached a P5 rating. Apparently half of telepaths trying to reach that "level" burn out. At what level could a wizard be considered a professional? Perhaps when they can cast Fireball? (Note that some wizards would become experts far faster than others.)

Tangentially, that brings up a question (which I've pondered more than once) why spellcasting mechanics automagically assume perfect execution of the (what must be) extraordinarily complex, martial gestures and vocal intonations/incantations yet its culturally accepted that PCs have to make that fairly mundane climb/jump check or fail that martial effort.

I was never a fan of how psionics could fail that way. (You could fail a power check, or make it and watch an enemy save...) Presumably it's for gameplay :/

A wizard would "realistically" have a good chance of flubbing a spell. They could forget an arcane word, or mispronounce it, or their arthritis acted up, or they spilled their spell component pouch while ducking an arrow and need to pick those components up... I guess any "combat wizard" would be extensively trained in that kind of thing.

 

[Manbearcat]

That leaves one question then... is a graduate an expert? (What level is a graduate? And then what level is a journeyman?)

In the Babylon 5 setting, an "professional" telepath is someone who has reached a P5 rating. Apparently half of telepaths trying to reach that "level" burn out. At what level could a wizard be considered a professional? Perhaps when they can cast Fireball? (Note that some wizards would become experts far faster than others.)

Not sure there would be an objective answer there. It begs further questioning with respect to a spellcaster caste (doh) system; who is proficient, expert, master, etc? I'll take a cue from our world there and just let acumen adjudication be driven either by a specific metric or by some pre-determined frequency ratio within the population. With respect to D&D spellcasters, you're probably talking about spell levels (rather than just Arcana, etc, checks) and that will vary by setting. You can certainly have "able to successfully cast a 2nd level spell" as a binary pass/fail for graduates with post-graduate work requiring higher spell level proficiency.

I was never a fan of how psionics could fail that way. (You could fail a power check, or make it and watch an enemy save...) Presumably it's for gameplay :/

A wizard would "realistically" have a good chance of flubbing a spell. They could forget an arcane word, or mispronounce it, or their arthritis acted up, or they spilled their spell component pouch while ducking an arrow and need to pick those components up... I guess any "combat wizard" would be extensively trained in that kind of thing.

I agree. I didn't like it and its absence is most certainly to facilitate a better gameplay experience. I'm not condoning it. I'm just ruminating upon the paradigm and why the same logic wasn't extended to martial characters performing stunts in their primary discipline (martial combat/athletics).

"I want to jump on this giants back and stab him like <insert heroic archetype>."
"Oh man, that is way tough. Its going to require these two checks, a Strength to jump and a Dex to balance, each of which have a 40 % chance of failure...then roll to hit."
"Um, but this wizard can perfectly execute these Jimmy Hendrix riffs with his fingers plus his Luciano Pavarotti intonations in the midst of this stressful combat, while dodging arrows and hustling up this ridge to avoid the melee?"
"Yeah dude, like rock stars do all the time."
"And professional point guards dribble the ball off their foot in traffic at a 50 % clip?..."
"Whatever, roll your dice and fail already."
"Uh, I'll just hit him with my spear or bow or whatever..."

 

[Tuft]

True, they say you need around 10,000 hours of practice on different things to become an expert at something. So, what sorts of things might you practice?

Spell-casters ought to train... casting their spells, I guess.

Which makes you wonder about all those spells with expensive material components, such as precious diamonds - how much does it cost to train casting them? (Not to mention 4E-style rituals... )

(Background: My Shadowrun GM was very much into resource management - you had to keep track of every bullet, with harsh acquisition rolls to replenish your supply. Which made me innocently ask how people improved their firearms skill without spending that precious hoard.... that question was not popular. )

 

[jonesy]

Spell-casters ought to train... casting their spells, I guess.

Which makes you wonder about all those spells with expensive material components, such as precious diamonds - how much does it cost to train casting them? (Not to mention 4E-style rituals... )

Can't you practise a spell without casting it? Otherwise it becomes prohibitively expensive without a sponsor.

 

[Tuft]

Can't you practise a spell without casting it? Otherwise it becomes prohibitively expensive without a sponsor.

Well, I think people would have a harder time accepting someone becoming an expert marksman without expending ammo, an expert driver without expending gas, or an expert swordsman who never practices swinging his sword.

The question is: How different are magic spells/rituals from this? What do people expect?

 

[Nytmare]

I think they pop out of the womb with their adult ability scores already determined, not achieved. Certainly their Con is well established by the time they are teenagers.

I think it's silly to argue that you need to have a training program to explain how a finished character ended up being a wizard, but you can't use that same training program to explain how a finished character ended up with an above average ability score.

Could you not have a character who "popped out of the womb" with their adult constitution determined to be an 18, but then they suffered a crippling disease as a child that left them with a weakened 8 con immune system?

 

[Ahnehnois]

Could you not have a character who "popped out of the womb" with their adult constitution determined to be an 18, but then they suffered a crippling disease as a child that left them with a weakened 8 con immune system?

Sure. That doesn't mean you could have one that was born with the potential for 8 Con (frail body, weak immune system, whatever) and did a lot of cross-training and come out of it with 18 Con.

I think it's silly to argue that you need to have a training program to explain how a finished character ended up being a wizard, but you can't use that same training program to explain how a finished character ended up with an above average ability score.

You could maybe sell me on some analagous process to the ability score point every 4 levels occurring as a youth, but to my way of thinking the whole point of ability scores is that they are the potential you are born with. Before 3e, it was almost impossible to change them.

 

[Nytmare]

We're not talking about changing them though, we're talking about explaining how they got to where they are. Would they make people do pushups in the King's army's boot camp, or rely on the fact that their recruits were destined to be stronger than average?

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Can't you practise a spell without casting it? Otherwise it becomes prohibitively expensive without a sponsor.

Maybe that's the real reason there are so few wizards. It costs a lot of money to train. Fortunately most spells have cheap components, and that could be included in your tuition. Expensive spells like identify or rituals with material components would seriously crank up the cost though. Also, in 3e (and earlier?) scribing costs, following copying a mentor's spellbook and/or buying scrolls. Again, could be covered with tuition, but it would be hideously expensive. A 4e caster needs an implement (well, not needs, but it's a good idea, even if it's plain) which costs at least 5 gp, plus a spellbook, which I think costs 50 gp. For an apprentice, that's not cheap.

When wizards gain levels, it's assumed they learned a spell or two for "free" without spending any costs. I don't think there was even a scribing cost for those spells in 3e, but it did take up spellbook space.